Something poked him in the ear. It was a sound. A loud one. Oh, just tinnitus. Snipes slapped his head until it switched to the other ear, then he pushed his head further into his filthy pillow. It didn’t help. He reached for The Thunder God, but it wasn’t there. He couldn’t remember where his old shotgun was, he’d lost it ages ago; months, maybe years, but quite ‘ago’.

He groaned into the gritty pillow.

“Oi, old fuck, get up,” who’s voice as that?

“I’ll fuckin’ kill you!”

“Eat me,” Oh, it was Kayla.

Snipes pulled himself up, fell down, then pulled himself up again. The closet he called his quarters smelled like his armpits. He reached in the dark for a bottle, but they tumbled over each other. He found one, eventually, that had something in it, and poured most of it down his filthy shirt. It took him another ten minutes to find his second left boot. Another ten to find a right boot.

Then he pushed out into the corridor of the ship. It had been white once, long before Snipes went grey. Visha never would have stood for this neglect, and it angered Snipes. He charged with new purpose to the bridge of the DP-20.

“The fuck is going on? Who’s cleaning this boat?”

“Ah, My Lord, we’re ready to lift off,” A small man with a brown mop on his head, what was his name?

“Then fucking do it, what are you waiting for?”

Snipes couldn’t hear it, but mop-head, Kenno, said to the guy sharing his cobbled together terminals, “He hasn’t tried to shoot anyone with his fingers yet, must be good day.”

Tolla, Kenno’s compatriot, tried with limited success to suppress a snicker. Snipes, in the background, flopped onto the floor in the absence of a throne. His boots were on the wrong feet, but no one on the bridge mentioned it.

“You bunch of half-wits found her?”

“Watch who you’re calling half-wits you burned out old shit,” Kenno yelled back.

“We’re looking towards her last known, My Lord,” Kayla said, ah a breath of fresh air, “VE space,” The air was less fresh.

“Those sunsabitches hung me out to dry!” Snipes screamed from the floor.

Tolla looked at Kenno, “I like them already.”

The bridge crew, Tolla, Kenno, Kayla, Zip and Zap, and Shield, pushed their buttons. From Snipes’ perspective, a lot of people he didn’t know were hitting buttons to take him back to Osk, back to his kingdom, and the only person that could make sense of it.

He promised the pirates the stars, and he’d taken them all across them. The question lingered, why had they left him alone on that planet of mud and ashes? They brought freedom and madness with them, and what greater gift was there? He burped up a bit of outdated imperial ration and left it on his once-white shirt. Who cared, if they had lost their taste for battle, then he would conquer his own territory.

The ship shuddered, lept forward, then made a kind of grinding-groaning noised that made Snipes pucker a bit. It was what a ship did before it exploded, he’d been on a few exploding ships between piracy and The Corps.

“Well, Old Fuck, hyperdrive is a wash,” Kayla said with astounding finality.

“Then un-fuck it,” Snipes slurred.

“No, we’re just going to chill here in space,” Kenno said, eyes rolling near out of their sockets.

Snipes didn’t see the crew frantically running from one panel to the other and taking things apart.

Kenno pushed the levers forward and the stars stretched into eternity. Snipes stood up and smiled. He brushed the crumbs from his beard and pawed his hair back. His shirt was dirty, an airy light affair, but now turned grey. He stood his full height with shoulder back, and for the briefest moment, any who looked saw the Pirate King, but nobody looked.

Within the pit of the arena the human fighter lurched forward and planted a hand, red spattering the churned earth beneath his mouth. The vibroblade jutting up from the between his shoulder blades was enough of an incentive to stay down. But nerves and fighting instinct kept him twitching, saw his face turn up for more, lips twisted in a snarl of defiance.

Up in the highest ring of the stands, tucked into a pocket of shadow unmarred by the bright floodlights, a woman flicked her gaze from the scene below to the man seated at her side.

“I’m done,” she told him, the low purr of her voice lost completely in the furore. Even so, her companion heard her. He rose, the breadth of his shoulders blocking the closing act of the match from view, and at his signal a trio of other men came to their feet.

The crowds parted as the party moved from the stands towards the surface, the baying of the spectators ceasing momentarily as the woman swept past. The grunting, chanting and swearing fell behind as the group climbed roughshod stone stairs.

“You can’t win,” the broad-shouldered man stated aloud as they neared the surface, his smile showing as a slit of white teeth beneath his blonde beard. “If you don’t bet.”

The grooves about the woman’s mouth deepened for a moment in amusement before she responded. “You know I only bet on a sure thing.”

The party paused as one of the bodyguards loping ahead kicked open the heavy wooden doors that functioned as an entryway, then stood back and tipped the brim of his feathered hat.

Kami Sharpe rolled her shoulders back and stepped into the chaos of Eyesore.

The scene that greeted her was familiar enough that, if she closed her eyes, it would be etched on her eyelids. Teetering structures of sheet metal, stone and hard-packed earth stacked haphazardly across the horizon. Flashing neon lights dangling from each exposed surface, proclaiming the presence of food, flesh and fortified spirits in foriegn scripture. The flicker of ships jetting in and out of the stained atmosphere, blotchy grey patches spreading as the ore refineries beyond the city limits heaved smoke into the air.

And amongst it all, laughing, brawling and copulating in a heaving mass, the Oskers. Men, women, alien and beast draped in bright flashing colours, weapons displayed like jewellery from shoulders, waists, claw and tentacle.

“Quiet out,” Angel said from where he still stood at her side. And he was right. Noon was for fighting, drinking and siesta, in that particular order.

Real business was done at night.

The party continued forward as a gentle saunter, calling out raucous greetings to some that meandered past, and showing the glint of silver to others.

Kami left the bluster to her men as her thoughts turned inevitably inwards. Her mind had not idled over the years, even as her energy flagged, and the strands of her black hair started to lighten to silver. There was always a problem to solve. A deal to close. An enemy to outmanoeuvre.

Eyesore had burned to ashes several times beneath the guiding hand of its masters only to always re-emerge, somehow less destructible, limping forward step by step until it could run again. The Oskers stubborn refusal to die had driven the Company almost unscathed through the slow decline of the Vast Empire. As the once mighty Imperial star waned, and the protection of its fleets crumbled, Kami and her lieutenants had spied opportunity amongst the ruins. Unclaimed ordnance. Transportation. Space lanes.

The loose ties between pirate and solder had evaporated along with the requirement to hide naked ambition beneath politics.

Kami pulled in a deep breath, tasting the blood, the sweat and grime on her tongue as she followed her men. They were headed home, to plot the next step in the journey ever upwards, towards dizzying heights.